AHC/WI: American Indians "pull a Meiji"
- Thread starter The Forty-Eighth Rōnin
- Start date
read the book "1491"
and of course "Guns, Germs and Steel"
both are highly approachable while being thorough
without widespread domestication of swine (where influenza comes from) and cattle (small pox), the Native American population is fatally vulnerable to the Eurasian disease pool. Cattle did not exist in North America during the last Ice Age so the Paleo Indians (or depending if you buy other theories) the natural disaster wiped out all the megafauna is not part of this equation.
Pigs aren't in North America either (and of course neither were in South America)
"1491" estimates that 99% of all Native Americans died from pandemics within a century of Columbus... so many that entire civilizations vanished and we are still finding traces of them and no explanation other than wipe out for their demise.
Genetically, Native Americans have increased resistance to parasitic infection, but are practically defenseless against European diseases at a genetic level. The reverse of course is true for the Europeans.
So no matter how wonderful a civilization the Pre Columbian Native Americans build (and as it is, they built some wonderful civilizations), they are facing holocaust once significant numbers of Europeans show up
This holocaust is considered the worst natural disaster and biggest catastrophe ever to hit humanity except of course for the genetic bottleneck caused by the Toba Event (which wiped out all but around 20,000 of us .. although there were probably only a few hundred thousand at most modern humans at that time anyway)
we are talking about as many as 100 million dead in about a century
The Cherokee really did try pretty hard though, but they were never even enough to form a decent sized city in terms of raw numbers and were simply swamped
and of course "Guns, Germs and Steel"
both are highly approachable while being thorough
without widespread domestication of swine (where influenza comes from) and cattle (small pox), the Native American population is fatally vulnerable to the Eurasian disease pool. Cattle did not exist in North America during the last Ice Age so the Paleo Indians (or depending if you buy other theories) the natural disaster wiped out all the megafauna is not part of this equation.
Pigs aren't in North America either (and of course neither were in South America)
"1491" estimates that 99% of all Native Americans died from pandemics within a century of Columbus... so many that entire civilizations vanished and we are still finding traces of them and no explanation other than wipe out for their demise.
Genetically, Native Americans have increased resistance to parasitic infection, but are practically defenseless against European diseases at a genetic level. The reverse of course is true for the Europeans.
So no matter how wonderful a civilization the Pre Columbian Native Americans build (and as it is, they built some wonderful civilizations), they are facing holocaust once significant numbers of Europeans show up
This holocaust is considered the worst natural disaster and biggest catastrophe ever to hit humanity except of course for the genetic bottleneck caused by the Toba Event (which wiped out all but around 20,000 of us .. although there were probably only a few hundred thousand at most modern humans at that time anyway)
we are talking about as many as 100 million dead in about a century
The Cherokee really did try pretty hard though, but they were never even enough to form a decent sized city in terms of raw numbers and were simply swamped
Well, Tecumseh seemed to think otherwise- he led a famous revolt against adopting foreign customs and religion. As well, the "Five Civilized Tribes" adopted some "Western" ("Eastern"?) customs such as slavery and western clothing.
It's a TL about the St. Lawrence Iroquoian-speaking groups (don't confuse them with the Iroquois Confederacy/Haudenosaunee. They spoke similar languages and had a similar culture like the Huron/Wendat, Erie, etc.). They have strike an alliance with the French and syncretisize their traditional spirituality with Catholicism, while adapting cattle and Euro-tech. Great atworld building and exploring the subtle waves of butterflies across North America and Europe so far.
I thought that was the name, but wasn't sure.
Just no. 99% of Natives did not die within a century of contact. It defies the simple logic of the Conquistadors having plenty of indigenous labor in just Mesoamerica and the Andes to build their empire off of. I could get into much more, especially how Guns, Germs, and Steel is colonial apologist BS, and 1491 is not God-tier unquestionable material. However, I just woke up and have not had my coffee yet.
Last edited:
"Guns, Germs, and Steel' as colonist bs? That is a fascinating charge I haven't seen anywhere. It seems odd when you read his other two major works "Collapse" and "The World Until Yesterday" (first about how civilizations can over stress their environments or lack the ability to react effectively to changing conditions with fatal consequences, the second is about how hunter gatherer civilizations actually exist in the conditions of their environment)
"1491' specifically addresses the the disagreement between those who view the Precolumbians has having lower numbers (around 30-60 million depending on which ones) and the newer theories that they had numbers in the 100 million or more range. Note that the 99% fatality figure is spread over a century, so that by 1600 some of groups that were hit earlier had a chance to partially recover in terms of demographics from initial contact.
But some, like the Carib and the Mississippians as well as cultures we don't even know the name of like those in the Amazon and in Paraguay, simply vanished completely while others were so shattered, like in New England, that colonial settlers had open places to settle because the former inhabitants were completely gone leaving a vacant area for Plymouth colony.
Just because Europeans wiped out most of their opposition by accident doesn't gloss over their actual colonial activities, including slavery and ethnic cleansing
as to 99%, I have seen figures running 90- 95% as accepted as standard, with 99% on the high range. It depends on how many people you believe were actually living in the Western Hemisphere when the Europeans arrived. Death rates depend on the concentration of the population like the heavily urbanized Inca and Aztecs, or the dense villages in eastern North America and from new evidence in places like Paraguay.
"1491' specifically addresses the the disagreement between those who view the Precolumbians has having lower numbers (around 30-60 million depending on which ones) and the newer theories that they had numbers in the 100 million or more range. Note that the 99% fatality figure is spread over a century, so that by 1600 some of groups that were hit earlier had a chance to partially recover in terms of demographics from initial contact.
But some, like the Carib and the Mississippians as well as cultures we don't even know the name of like those in the Amazon and in Paraguay, simply vanished completely while others were so shattered, like in New England, that colonial settlers had open places to settle because the former inhabitants were completely gone leaving a vacant area for Plymouth colony.
Just because Europeans wiped out most of their opposition by accident doesn't gloss over their actual colonial activities, including slavery and ethnic cleansing
as to 99%, I have seen figures running 90- 95% as accepted as standard, with 99% on the high range. It depends on how many people you believe were actually living in the Western Hemisphere when the Europeans arrived. Death rates depend on the concentration of the population like the heavily urbanized Inca and Aztecs, or the dense villages in eastern North America and from new evidence in places like Paraguay.
Last edited:
takerma
Banned
99% is just a number Mann pulled out of his ass pretty much. It does not fit with any epidemic or series of epidemic, starvation, war we know about where even small amount of records or good research exist(Justinian plague, Black death etc). For something this extraordinaire to be accepted we need a VERY strong proof which does not exist atm.
I could not handle his book once I got to the part where he talks about bows vs guns. Firearms even early ones that were in general crap were far more effective then bows(especially American bows which were in general poor). If man wears an armour bow utility(especially bows firing arrows like ones in America) is small since he is mostly immune. Musket ball punches through anything except heavy breastplate. Seeing that Americans did not possess good armour, they did not possess bows or war arrows optimizing for defeating armour. Even if they did.. see Sengoku and how fast Japanese switched form using Yumi to mass producing muskets.
I could not handle his book once I got to the part where he talks about bows vs guns. Firearms even early ones that were in general crap were far more effective then bows(especially American bows which were in general poor). If man wears an armour bow utility(especially bows firing arrows like ones in America) is small since he is mostly immune. Musket ball punches through anything except heavy breastplate. Seeing that Americans did not possess good armour, they did not possess bows or war arrows optimizing for defeating armour. Even if they did.. see Sengoku and how fast Japanese switched form using Yumi to mass producing muskets.
Lateknight
Banned
Even if it was as low as 90% of a die off that's still more then enough dead to damage societies in a way that takes centuries to recover and there wasn't just one series of plagues it was a non ending series of plagues and epidemics.
On 1491...
1491 is best approached as a great big college reading guide - you'll get more from the works in the citations often than the chapters that cite them.
While 99% is too high, I think 85% is highly likely. There is a reason that even in the life times of Cortez's followers, the Spanish were importing slaves from Africa. The data supporting 85% is simple: Smallpox is a hell of a disease, and not a single person, or anyone they were descended from, had been exposed to it. This is the ultimate virgin soil epidemic, amongst populations that was quite urban by the standards of the world of the day. On top of that, malaria is a hell of disease, that's well adapted to the wet tropical areas that a lot of pre-Columbian culture was built in. When you think that Bubonic plague was around 40%, in populations that weren't at the level of vulnerability that Europe in the 14th was, 85% is highly likely, to the point that the Spanish are importing slave labor within a few decades.
The thing with Mesoamerica "pulling a Meiji" is that their civilizations were already quite advanced - they were just light on the metal and highly vulnerable. When they weren't dropping dead of disease, could the tlatoques could probably put as many men in the field as the King of Spain. When they weren't dropping dead of disease.
The big thing about Pre-Columbian Civilization is that the two common viewpoints on it are a bit wrong. One is the popular, "Native Americans As Hippie Elves" school of thought, where they are the older, wiser, living in harmony with nature tribes who were simply overwhelmed by the Europeans, and these concepts of "killing" alien to the virtuous indigenes. The other is either the old racism, or new "dark enlightenment," which will find ways to show that any depictions of the Native Americans as anything but stone-age primitives is pc nonsense that they refuse to tip their fedoras too.
Point is, both of these are wrong. The Pre-Contact Americas built high civilizations, of art and culture and the folkway observations of the natural world that could have become science that are every bit as complex and advanced as anywhere else on the globe. They were not virtuous noble savages or angry primitive ones. They just had a vulnerability to disease that was fatal when combined with first contact with another culture that had developed a world beating military and maritime technologies that massively leveraged the striking power of a relatively small number of men.
1491 is best approached as a great big college reading guide - you'll get more from the works in the citations often than the chapters that cite them.
While 99% is too high, I think 85% is highly likely. There is a reason that even in the life times of Cortez's followers, the Spanish were importing slaves from Africa. The data supporting 85% is simple: Smallpox is a hell of a disease, and not a single person, or anyone they were descended from, had been exposed to it. This is the ultimate virgin soil epidemic, amongst populations that was quite urban by the standards of the world of the day. On top of that, malaria is a hell of disease, that's well adapted to the wet tropical areas that a lot of pre-Columbian culture was built in. When you think that Bubonic plague was around 40%, in populations that weren't at the level of vulnerability that Europe in the 14th was, 85% is highly likely, to the point that the Spanish are importing slave labor within a few decades.
The thing with Mesoamerica "pulling a Meiji" is that their civilizations were already quite advanced - they were just light on the metal and highly vulnerable. When they weren't dropping dead of disease, could the tlatoques could probably put as many men in the field as the King of Spain. When they weren't dropping dead of disease.
The big thing about Pre-Columbian Civilization is that the two common viewpoints on it are a bit wrong. One is the popular, "Native Americans As Hippie Elves" school of thought, where they are the older, wiser, living in harmony with nature tribes who were simply overwhelmed by the Europeans, and these concepts of "killing" alien to the virtuous indigenes. The other is either the old racism, or new "dark enlightenment," which will find ways to show that any depictions of the Native Americans as anything but stone-age primitives is pc nonsense that they refuse to tip their fedoras too.
Point is, both of these are wrong. The Pre-Contact Americas built high civilizations, of art and culture and the folkway observations of the natural world that could have become science that are every bit as complex and advanced as anywhere else on the globe. They were not virtuous noble savages or angry primitive ones. They just had a vulnerability to disease that was fatal when combined with first contact with another culture that had developed a world beating military and maritime technologies that massively leveraged the striking power of a relatively small number of men.
twovultures
Donor
I'll second Lateknight-the Cherokee did, but they were not militarily powerful enough to fight off the United States, so the fruits of their advancement and their land were taken from them (at least part of this theft was justified by the need to 'complete' their modernization by privatizing collectively-owned tribal land).
Lateknight said:
The exact demographic effects of the plague, and their interplay with environmental disruption and white violence are complex and complicated. As it is, a political POD could help a tribe "pull a meiji"*. For example, a Cherokee state that stands as a buffer between a Spanish superFlorida and some disunited anglophone States could modernize with little fear of invasion and dispossesion.
*maybe that phrase should be retired
Lateknight
Banned
True, ironically enough I think that if more European nations were interested in colonizing the Americas you would more surviving native nations as they would have more use for buffer states.
But to give some points towards the OP, it seems like you have a few scenarios.
1) Norse Smallpox. Relatively simple to pull off, to have something more like OTL first contact, Vinland still fails. Now I think an epidemic probably derails whatever train produces the Mexica (Aztecs), but the Maya, among many other things, could roll with a punch, incorporate whatever disaster befell them into the great cycle of time, and keep on trucking. So there's a Maya, and some Teotihuacan successor culture, here dubbed "Notztecs," in place when the Spaniards show up, that has some disease resistance.
2) A blend. OTL smallpox exposure, but either because the Spaniards make contact with a less overtly human sacrifice-y culture than the Aztecs, you have a situation that is more like the Raj - Spaniards atop a relatively extant local aristocracy. The religious angle is covered by the MesoAmerican church having a whole lot of new "saints" - so in other words, the way Catholicism tended to look outside the cities in Spanish America anyway. OTL, the Spaniards ran into the Aztecs first, who did a rather lot of sacrificing. The Maya zone had the occasional human sacrifice, but the real potent ritual was for a noble or king to give of his own blood, preferably, from, ahem, the part of the body that granted potency. I'll let you look it up.
Anyway, a culture where the blending happened on the elite level too, unlike OTL, can declare independence at a latter date while maintaining far more native structure.
These are some rough ideas.
1) Norse Smallpox. Relatively simple to pull off, to have something more like OTL first contact, Vinland still fails. Now I think an epidemic probably derails whatever train produces the Mexica (Aztecs), but the Maya, among many other things, could roll with a punch, incorporate whatever disaster befell them into the great cycle of time, and keep on trucking. So there's a Maya, and some Teotihuacan successor culture, here dubbed "Notztecs," in place when the Spaniards show up, that has some disease resistance.
2) A blend. OTL smallpox exposure, but either because the Spaniards make contact with a less overtly human sacrifice-y culture than the Aztecs, you have a situation that is more like the Raj - Spaniards atop a relatively extant local aristocracy. The religious angle is covered by the MesoAmerican church having a whole lot of new "saints" - so in other words, the way Catholicism tended to look outside the cities in Spanish America anyway. OTL, the Spaniards ran into the Aztecs first, who did a rather lot of sacrificing. The Maya zone had the occasional human sacrifice, but the real potent ritual was for a noble or king to give of his own blood, preferably, from, ahem, the part of the body that granted potency. I'll let you look it up.
Anyway, a culture where the blending happened on the elite level too, unlike OTL, can declare independence at a latter date while maintaining far more native structure.
These are some rough ideas.
The Spanish ran into the Maya well before the Aztecs. Cortez wasn't the first Spaniard to explore about the mainlaind, or even Mesoamerica at all, although it should also be pointed out that IIRC he landed in the Yucatan as well. Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba landed in the Yucatan before him, and that ended quite violently.